CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

So uh... Normal/Ghost anyone?
Normal/Ghost is a very interesting type. It's immune to Fighting type moves- check that type off the list. It also has only weakness I could find which would be Dark. That could seriously skyrocket dark usage depending on how strong this Pokemon is. If it has very frail defenses, many teams would run Dark (an uncommon type) just to deal with the Pokemon and get it out of the way- probably with a sucker punch. Attacking wise, it isn't great, the only two types it hits for STAB SE damage would be ghost or psychic. A downside to this type combination is also the fact Steel resists both its STABs. So given if this Pokemon could be focused into Offense- it'd most likely give more of a reason for Steels to stick around but significantly increase the need for Dark types. Defensively, it removes Fighting types, does not promote Steel, Water, or Dragon, and is comprised of two Uncommon types that two immunities, only one type that hits it for SE damage, but only resists Bug and Poison, one of which is an uncommon type already which probably will get no love in the future.

This all being said, I want to emphasize the point that three uncommon types will be used in Normal, Ghost, AND Dark. A team will automatically use dark types to deal with this based off of how powerful it could potentially be. One thing that is not getting stressed enough in this is teammates- a Pokemon created with this idea can also have an effect on who is used along with the type. While Normal/Ghost is weak to Dark, the teammate of the Normal/Ghost type would have to be Fighting, Steel, or Dark. Fighting would theoretically be lowered because of this typing, making Steel and Dark logical choice to use alongside it. A dark type of your own (My personal favorite being Weavile, so I'll use him here) also can take care of Lati@s, which seems to be another large point of discussion. Secondary typings of Darks also tend to be useful, Ice, Fire, and Ghost to name a few, which all play roles in their own respect.

Main Points I want to stress:
- Teammates: The Pokemon also needs to cause an influx in their teammates of underused types. Remember that when picking your type.
- Weather: Rain isn't everything. Tyranitar and Hippodown are still out there. Pick your types on a more general scale, not just to help Sun beat rain.

I feel like people have been ignoring/misunderstanding the way this project is heading right now. As jas said, we don't want to create a pokemon that is a better sweeper in the sun, a better dragon counter, or a better rain counter because we already have pokes to do these. We need CAP5 to fill multiple roles needed on a sun team to free up more room for pokemon that can already do these things. For example, what if we had one pokemon that was a spinner, hazard setter, and trapper for sun? This could take dugtrio and donphan's spots and leave one of them open for a pokemon to do one of the other things sun needs.

An Electric type, as has been stated, would be an ideal type for a pokemon trying to fill multiple roles on a sun team. This is because its STAB attack could threaten out many water types and other rain team members to give CAP5 a turn to do one of its jobs. If we choose to have another type on this pokemon, I suggest that the secondary type not be weak to stealth rocks, water moves, or ice moves while also helping to fill one of the roles assigned to it. If this pokemon is weak to water and/or ice (such as a fire, grass, or ground typing), I don't believe that it will successfully be able to fulfill our concept's goal because water pokemon will be able to stop CAP5 with these commonly carried moves. Sun teams already have enough SR weak pokemon, so adding another (especially one that will most likely be switching in often to do its multiple jobs) pokemon heavily damaged by rocks will lessen the chances that CAP5 does its jobs.

Complementary secondary typings include dark and ghost (already mentioned, i know). Dark could provide a possibility of STAB pursuit to simply fill a trapper role, and ghost could provide an immunity to fighting allowing an extra turn or other advantage when against a pokemon such as choiced terrakion. But a secondary typing isn't necessary; make sure it helps the concept (providing useful resistances for opportunities to take advantage of) more than it hurts it (extra stealth rock weakness for an already stealth rock weak playstyle).

CAP Head Mod

The two hour discussion occurred just before I had to leave this morning so I got cut off at the end. One of the things I brought up, phrased differently from Birkal, is that the primary problem of a sun team is that a sun team is tactical, not strategic.

What do I mean by that? Well, a Sun team is usually constructed as Ninetales / Venusaur / Dugtrio / Spinner / Heatran / Slot. 4/6ths of your team is essentially dedicated to a tactic. Venusaur is overstretched as Sun Sweeper and pivot since it alone takes Water attacks well outside of Sun, Dugtrio is used for Arena Trap, period, and Heatran adds unfortunate redundancies in offensive coverage and some weaknesses.

The best direction for CAP 5 would be to create a Pokemon to fill one of those holes and act in both a tactical capacity and as another defensive pivot to give sun teams a true core rather than being reducible to tactical roles like weather starter, trapper, spinner, sun sweeper.

Obviously based on my concept I'd prefer we build a trapping Pokemon that's more competent than Dugtrio and let a Pokemon more suited to addressing sun's weaknesses in the freed up slot.

An additional auto-weather starter is out of the question no matter how helpful it might be since it is more apt to replace Ninetales than synergize with it.

That leaves a dedicated spinner as an effective defensive pivot or a Pokemon that allows for different synergystic options that Heatran, a much more ill-defined role - or a sun sweeper that is equally as effective as Venusaur such that it can allow Venusaur to make a more defensive role viable on the playstyle.

As far as typings I like based on this:

Electric/Grass is a great defensive pivot that can take water attacks and specifically isolate every water type used in Rain and take it down, from Rotom-W to Gastrodon. It is an ideal typing for a Dugtrio kind of replacement because Electric/Grass is very redundant offensively and defensively, having STABs resisted by both Grass and Dragon, but if used as a very specifically built trapper pivot will be able to isolate rain threats. It's also not going to work as well on rain than as soon, as rain already has a huge number of electric-type abusers, and Ferrothorn is much more viable type-wise than this would be.

I require more convincing with Electric/Dark that the Latis are the primary threat we should concern ourselves with,. Rain hates the Latis just as much and introducing a Pokemon that can take those out is just going to perpetuate that cycle. Electric/Dark is a fairly neutral typing to weather, and not really specifically useful to sun over the others. Remember, this concept is about raising the usage of a type, not just this CAP. My fear with Electric/Dark is that it just gives Rain another tool, and will increase the popularity of Electric and Water types by giving Rain a more solid answer to the Latis.

Grass / Steel provides a potential alternative to Heatran with a Dragon resistance, and we can differentiate it from Ferrothorn with any number of traits such as a different build, sun-boosting abilities that make it much more functional to take the risk of insta-death to Fire in Sun for an offensive or defensive benefit. Of the Hidden Power types Rain Pokemon are likely to take, Fire is the lowest on the list - it's just too difficult to play on a Rain team.

Grass / Ice operates in the same sort of realm as Grass/Steel, except it takes a more pro-active approach to the Latis, and has a STAB Priority that can get the drop at least on Breloom. If used in the Sun, we could again utilize abilities that have maximum effect in the sun, in addition to operating with a type that has minimal benefit to Rain.

Steel / Fire is a final consideration, and this particular typing I think could take on Heatran's role as a hazard layer and also take on the spinner role. In this case the typing is targeted toward a defensive pivot for Dragon type attacks aimed at sun teams in general and Ice attacks against Venusaur and Dugtrio specifically.

I know the last typing hasn't been discussed, but I want to take this discussion in a direction that addresses the biggest flaw in sun teams as they currently exist, and opens up one of their team slots by taking one of their tactical slots and turning it into a strategic one. This could mean a Spinner that is perfectly calibrated to use in sun by fulfilling a defensive pivot role, a Trapper that can isolate a more broad threat list than the Ground-weak Pokemon that plague sun times, or even a Pokemon that can take over Venusaur's job and let it act a defensive glue rather than a premier sweeper.

In short, the questions to ask should be:

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?

Going off of Desk's post - I would like to propose Electric/Steel. In spite of being a massive oxymoron, I see great potential in the type. It would cover water weaknesses while also providing a valuable dragon resistance, both things Sun teams are sorely lacking. It could work either defensively or offensively - either way, Sun teams will very much enjoy a serious way to handle Dragons, Flyers, and Waters all at once, a defensive pivot they are sorely lacking in. While in theory, this would still leave us open to Gastrodon, in practice Hidden Power Grass, even from a low special attack stat, will be plenty sufficient to murder the slug thanks to quadruple damage, absolutely no STAB required. It also would not be practical to be used by Rain teams for much of the same reasons Electric / Grass suffers from.

Moderator

With these new criteria in mind, I'd like to pose some more reasoning as to why Ghost/Electric would be an excellent choice for our Sun support mon.

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?(Move your mouse to reveal the content)How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams? (open)How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams? (close)

This typing addresses the common weaknesses of Sun teams by not exaggerating them and being able to perform utility roles excellently without worrying about being weak to common coverage moves on Rain teams. Ghost/Electric is weak to Ghost, Dark, and Ground moves, the latter of which is the most concerning for Sun teams. While Ground weakness is fairly lame, it isn't as easy for Rain teams to pick on as the Ice and Flying weaknesses of Grass types, and is easy to exploit due to the dearth of Pokemon immune to Ground type attacks (Dragonite, Hydreigon, and other levitating Dragons are commonly seen on Sun teams) and the availability of Air Balloon or even possibly a fast Magnet Rise. Ghost and Dark weaknesses don't compound on Sun teams at all and would encourage less used STAB types if CAP5 was sufficiently to avoid the OHKO from non-STAB moves.

Meanwhile, Ghost/Electric is immune to Fighting and Normal, and resists Electric, Bug, Flying, Steel, and the rare Poison. Sun teams rarely like taking Fighting-type attacks at all, with Venusaur being a less than optimal switch-in and resistant Dragons being worn down by Stealth Rock, so providing a concrete response to Fighting types would add defensive synergy. Normal immunity also provides immunity to Rapid Spin, giving Sun-teams a spin blocker to use at last and helping to ensure that Sun sweepers can break through opponents after hazard damage (especially if CAP5 can provide a hazard itself) Meanwhile, a healthy roster of resistances provides insurance against most Electric-types (Thundurus-T hopefully won't break through with HP Ice any time soon) and provides an extremely solid switch-in to Scizor, who can annoy Chlorophyll sweepers with Bullet Punch. CAP5 can even come into Scizor and finish it with Sun-boosted HP Fire (or a Fire coverage move) before it gets to fire off Pursuit, its only other option. While Water-neutrality isn't optimal, the extra team slot made available by CAP5 would be able to address this, as would a Lati@s of your own.

So overall, Ghost/Electric addresses the weaknesses of Sun teams by being able to fill support roles while not worrying about compounding these weaknesses, while providing a solid defensive switch in to Fighting, Electric, and Bug types and Rapid Spin immunity.

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?(Move your mouse to reveal the content)What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand? (open)What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand? (close)

Firstly, it would be a spin-blocker for Sun teams. Gengar doesn't have the defensive capability to reliably spin-block for them, while Jellicent has almost no offensive presence in sunlight. On the other hand, both Rain and Sand teams love using Jellicent in particular as a defensive spin blocker. Through careful movepool and ability choices, we can ensure that there are plenty of incentives to use CAP5 on Sun teams, while not outclassing Jellicent in Rain and Sand. With sufficient bulk and a lack of weaknesses, CAP5 would also relieve defensive pressure from its teammates, meaning that they can be used in a more offensive capacity without being forced into situations such as Ninetales/Volcarona trying to block a Scizor Bullet Punch etc.

Secondly, I would like for CAP5 to fill a spinning and/or hazard laying niche for Sun teams through movepool choices. While this is slightly poll jumping, this would remove the need for using Xatu or a mediocre/unsuited spinner while also relieving pressure from Heatran or Dugtrio to lay Stealth Rock. We wouldn't need to worry about such a Pokemon being used on Rain/Sand teams, as they already have much better, weather specialized candidates for these roles. Starmie and Tentacruel are arguably the best spinners in the tier and are inherently at their best in Rain, while Forretress is an excellent candidate for Sand teams, and Ferrothorn is a fantastic hazard layer for both playstyles. However, all of these candidates have significant drawbacks when used on Sun teams. Thus, so long as we make CAP5 useful in hazard / spinning roles, but not so useful as to outclass these guys in their respective weathers, it will inherently see more use on Sun teams than on other weathers or even weatherless teams. The lack of weaknesses to common attacking types only increases CAP5's flexibility in this environment. This can be reinforced through other movepool choices, such as providing a Fire coverage move.

As an aside, if we decide to give it to CAP5, STAB Volt Switch would be a boon for securing momentum against Rain teams, which is a severe issue for Sun teams at the moment. If CAP5 comes into Politoed, the opponent's team will be forced onto the defensive, which is absolutely fantastic for the Sun playstyle in general. This role is almost never seen on Sun teams, and when it is, it's usually Forretress using it ineffectually. With such a powerful tool, the necessity of using a dedicated trapper to remove Politoed would also be reduced, as it would become a liability the moment CAP5 switches in. In addition, if CAP5 were to be given Arena Trap as its ability for trapping Politoed (Outside of unSTAB Pursuit, this is the only method I see working), then not only would it be able to trap and kill Politoed, it would also be able to bring Ninetales in on the same turn, immediately turning the match around.

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?(Move your mouse to reveal the content)What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up? (open)What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up? (close)

The primary weaknesses of this typing are Ghost, Dark, and Ground, with a Water-neutrality also being a slight inconvenience. With CAP5 aiming to take over the spinner slot, possibly hazards, and trapping Politoed, this would remove any compounding weaknesses that other spinners/bouncers would cause (eg Forretress, Donphan, Xatu) as well as those of Dugtrio / Gothitelle. This would free up a teamslot and possibly give mons like Heatran an extra moveslot to use instead of Stealth Rock, depending on whether CAP5's moveset would become too crowded or not.

Notably, a Grass-type could be used to block Ground and Water hits, as well as dealing with Tyranitar that may be a nuisance (although a decently fast Volt Switch could be used to avoid Pursuit). Virizion would be absolutely fantastic in these roles and would help provide defensive backbone and a backup sweeper vs Rain, while Hydreigon with Roost would also perform well and would annihilate enemies with its Sun-boosted Fire Blasts, STAB attacks, and / or Fighting moves. Opposing Ghost types that could break through CAP5 would not be very keen to face Hydreigon, unless they're Gengar. Fighting types such as Infernape and Terrakion would also help to deal with Tyranitar and provide even more offense; although they compound weaknesses, the extra offensive pressure they would place on opponents would be invaluable. Overall, Flying types would be useful to alleviate the Ground weakness and to abuse CAP5's spinning capability, with Zapdos, Togekiss, and even Moltres becoming slightly more viable and being able to abuse Heat Wave / Fire Blast in Sunlight.

Since the last IRC discussions I've been warming up to embrace Electric/Grass and Electric/Dark. As far as I can see, they're the best typings for improving on a sun team's key Water resist and trapper, respectively.

Electric/Dark would trap through Pursuit and likely be a physical attacker as a result. This typing gives us the freedom to choose any ability, including a Water-immunity should we want it, which I still firmly believe is the best way at our disposal to discourage use of Water types and Water attacks in general. I was indeed concerned that its Stealth Rock and weather neutrality makes it that rain teams could pick up CAP5 for themselves and use it to eliminate Ninetails from the weather war instead - but Ninetails might have WoW to burn it first. So with that issue covered, I can support Electric/Dark without worries.

Electric/Grass is my secondary choice, because with the right stats, that valuable Water resistance and quadruple Thunder resistance will make for a good defensive pivot that can also serve other supporting roles. Here we have more freedom to choose an ability other than a Water-immunity, so depending on our later choices it can double as a spinner, or trapper, or just be a really solid defensive pivot. Again it's Stealth Rock neutral, though its unfortunate weakness to U-Turn and Ice Beam encourage the enemy teams to target CAP5 with those moves (but a Fire switch-in, in turn, especially Heatran, would welcome the opportunity).

Next up, I wanted to address some concerns people were having with CAP5 being good enough to be used on rain teams as well as sun teams. Why is that a problem? Our Concept states all we have to do is 'decrease the usage of one or more overused types and increase the usage of one or more underused types'. We've taken a direction to address this via weather, but that's not the be-all end-all we should focus on.

Or put another way, if our CAP5 turns out to be good enough to be used on Rain AND Sun teams both, but has a Typing that's not of any of the Overused types, then the currently dominant playstyle of Rain has just had to replace one of its members with a mon of the underused type(s). That meets the goal too.

Don't think just in terms of Rain vs Sun. It's good if we can make Sun briefly dominant or even just to match Rain's popularity - but if the Rain team is forced to replace some of its Overused abusers with niche checks to address CAP5 or even use CAP5 itself (didn't people repeatedly suggest that underused types would rise from UU to Counter CAP5?) that's FINE, guys. Let them. Let Rain jump on the bandwagon and duke it out with Sun to see which weather ends up being the new dominant one. But, it'll certainly not be the same Rain team as what we currently have in OU, not anymore... I suppose that taking this into account, Electric/Grass has the advantage that it has a good match up against both Rain and Sand but opposing Sun teams are going to crush it easily (whether through Fire or Venusaur's STAB Poison attacks).

Now to all people suggesting that we need a Steel type to counter Dragons or that Dragons are too strong to address at all - Heatran is already present on Sun teams to wall Dragon STAB and anti-Dragon Pokemon exist. Heck, Cloyster after ShellSmash sweeps right through 4drag2mag if there isn't a Scizor to stop it. But Cloyster needs an OPENING to do its job.... which an Electric type with VoltSwitch that trapped something Cloyster can setup on would achieve. The same goes with any other Poke you'd choose instead of Cloyster.

So in conclusion, yeah. Don't think of CAP5 as necessarily being a Sun Abuser - think of an Enabler that lets the rest of a Sun team do their jobs better. And then think of a typing that complements the role CAP5 would fill..... or in short - listen to jas and Deck, they said it before much better than me, heh.

With the addition questions, I would like to give some more reasoning behind the Grass/Flying type I mentioned before:-

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?

One thing we all mentioned is that a big weakness of Sun teams is slot syndrome. Too many roles, not enough slots. Depending how we take it on, this allows us to fill multiple roles due to the available move sthat come with these types both attacking, boosting and defensive. Just to name a few, Growth, Leaf Blade, Solarbeam, Leech Seed, Spore, Cotton Guard, Hurricane, Brave Bird, Roost, etc.

Yes Jumpluff exsists as well as Tropius with this typing but du eto their movepool and stats they can't do much with it. However, they do both have completely different roles so it allows us to see the potential available. Also, as I previously said, there are alot of Physical sweepers and alot of filler moves in the show of Earthquake, to the point you have Pokemon like Heatran with an Air Balloon taking care of it. With Flying, it allows easy switch ins from the Earthquakes Fire pokemon draw out.

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?

I personally feel this question can't really be answered because we have no idea of the direction we actually want to take to with the Mon as far as roles go, but with the resistances and immunuties it packs, it allows switch in to common Rain attacking types/coverage moves (Water, Ground, Fighting) and allow it to then do it's role. It can be used as a defensive pivot as such to help the Sun team with it's ground immunity, it could be a strong attacking force with Wood Hammer/Brave Bird and an ability like Reckless fo rinstance it has plenty of opportunities.

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?

One weakness that could be brought up is a Flying weakness and the primary use of the move Hurricane on Rain teams. That is fine, as lets look at what pokemon actually resist the typing of Flying:-

Electric

Rock

Steel

Now looking at Steel types, they are already overused and they can't really be used effectively as a weakness of theirs get's boosted in Sun.

That leaves us with Electric and Rock. Two more uncommon used types. Electric sports that ground weakness that can already plague Sun teams and technically would have to be using it's physical moves for the raw power it wants due to the accuracy drop of Thunder or stick with TBolt.

Now, this brings me to Rock. Resists the flying type and can effectively counter them in all weather. Alot of the grass types and Fire types in Sun generally use Special moves as well, so this would allow us a phycial attacker which could form quite an offensive core helping resist each others weakness. Rock covers Poison, Flying, Fire and Normal while Grass/Flying covers Fighting, Water, Ground and Grass. Also, with being a Rock type, it generally means it comes with SR which it could use on these Sun teams as it now has a partner to help out alot on these teams.

I like Abomasnow's type, but I hate having to use Abomasnow. Trust me, if you've never tried Hail, you're lucky, as you've never had to deal with fitting Abomasnow on your team. Seriously bad. However, Grass/Ice is purely rediculous offensively. Consider a Pokémon with both Grass and Ice STAB and a coverage move (HP Fire? Can I say that?). It competely destroys Sandstorm. Grass kills off Rock, Ice kills Ground, and such coverage move beats out Steels.

Rain is also hurt, as Water and Eletric is resisted and Ice is neutral. The Latis would fall without problem, and Politoed is fried by STAB Grass. This would require Rain teams to have to run multiple guys with HP Fire to counter, and that altered move slot could change a decent number of wins into losses.

Anyways, that's just what I think, guys.

tl;dr
Grass/Ice would wreck a lot of Sandstorm and Rain teams all by itself.

After reading some of the other posts, I'd like to throw my support behind Electric/Grass.

In terms of usefulness against types, it can wall some Water types, is not weak to Stealth Rocks, Fighting, or Earthquake. Additionally, it threatens most Rain sweepers, and I imagine it'll have a nice variety of either offensive or defensive moves.

It itself is weak to Fire, Bug, and Ice. This means that, if popular enough, these Pokèmon types may become more prevalent in order to counter it.

Being weak to these also warrants more Pokèmon resistant to these. Such types include Steel (:P), Fire, Water (:P), Dragon (:P), Rock, Bug, and Ice.

So I was going to make a huuuuge post analysing every single type put forward with my opinions, but sadly maths homework got in the way. So I'm just going to talk about those I really really don't want, and those I really do. Here goes...

All ghost types
I'm grouping all ghosts together because to me they share an irredeemable flaw for CAP5: they make it a spinblocker. Our approach here is to create something that helps sun teams by performing many roles, one of which is keeping hazards away from them (furthermore, anti-hazard will do other things to help equalize types). Introducing a new spinblocker will completely and utterly make this pointless. CAP5 won't be able to spin against itself.

Not only that, but generally dark achieves ghost's desirable effects without the undesirable ones. So sorry if you've put forward a ghost type, but I'm not a fan.

All dragon types
The "let's make a dragon to beat dragons" logic kinda scares me. There are two possible outcomes if we follow this path:
1. We create a dragon that can beat other dragons. Brilliant. That means CAP5 is even more powerful than the existing dragons out there in OU. Like we need that. That'll centralize the meta around dragons even more, cause more steel types and generally reverse the intended outcome of the project while our new 'mon rampantly runs around being broken.
2. We create a dragon that isn't as good as other dragons. And the other dragons and the steel types come along to beat it. It'll thus have no effect on type usage or worse: if there are other reasons to use it frequently, dragons and steels will rise in usage to beat it.

And alongside that, what's keeping our dragon on sun teams? Dragons fit nicely onto just about any team as it is.

Dark/Electric
Ah, this type. I'm really starting to be won over by this one. It really ticks a lot of boxes without seeming overpowered at all. It'll actually beat water types in realistic situations, unlike grass, can take flying and electric attacks, can give the Latis trouble and possibly deal with other dragons.

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?
It'll actually beat water types in realistic situations, unlike grass, can take flying and electric attacks, can give the Latis trouble and possibly deal with other dragons.

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?
Personally, I think with Dark/Electric this is still wide open. There's potential of trapping with pursuit, but I'd hope the offensive pressure it would provide could allow it to spin as well - forcing water types out for free turns and using it's dark typing to beat spinblockers.

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?
The biggest problem with this type is the lack of water resist, though it's ground and fighting weaknesses might not be much fun either. If I had to pick a partner to go in the newly opened teamslot I would go for to Gengar or Jellicent who have immunities to 2 out of 3 types each and give the potential for a nice offensive or defensive core, respectively. While a partnership like that works when viewed in a vacuum, I wonder whether it would in reality too.

Electric/Grass
I'm quite a fan of this one too. It seems like a dedicated water-killer at first but I do think it has merits. It's good defensive typing with key resists like ground and water, with ice being the only key weakness. I think it could potentially stick around for a while and be a defensive pivot. Still, with sun teams struggling for teamslots, I wonder if a second grass type is really going to be all that helpful (I think it's fair to assume Venusaur should still be seeing use) and for that reason I prefer Dark/Electric. Still wouldn't mind this one though.

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?
Slaughtering water types seems to be the main selling point of this one, providing a resistance to their type and hitting them hard back.

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?
It's good defensive typing with key resists like ground and water, with ice being the only key weakness. I think it could potentially stick around for a while and be a defensive pivot. Support is another option - especially if it can hit opponents that try set up on it.
Still, with sun teams struggling for teamslots, I wonder if a second grass type is really going to be all that helpful (I think it's fair to assume Venusaur should still be seeing use) and for that reason I prefer Dark/Electric. Still wouldn't mind this one though.

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?
I think what this type really needs is something that can take ice type hits for it. Heatran, maybe?

I have mixed thoughts about some of these typings, and here's why. One of the things we need to take into consideration at this stage is coverage. Just because something is weak to a type is no guarantee that is till be used. Indeed, most of the time Hidden Power coverage simply changes.

I know this is jumping to the stat stage, but just as an example, if we are to consider typing rises, the defensive properties (stats, typing, ect.) Not only have to take STAB into account, it needs to make the entire difference on whether CAP 5 is handled or not.

That said, some of the arguments for types like Grass/Flying don't hold up as well. As many water types will be packing Ice Beam as ever.

That said, I think a place to start might actually be Ground. If we really are condensing roles, Dugtrio and Donphan have a large presence on Sun teams, and thus compound each other's weakness. So have a Ground type that can handle both roles, and we're able to condense roles and open up a team slot, creating room for a separate defensive pivot.

This seems counterintuitive, giving a water weakness, but it isn't Stealth Rock weak, and we can patch the water weakness with a secondary typing or ability.

Moderator

So, I'd like to get a bit more specific now regarding the types that Deck Knight mentioned in his last post.

First off is Electric/Grass. I definitely agree with the common sentiment that this would make a good typing for our Pokemon. It can help take the role of a defensive pivot against rain, meaning that if it can fill any other job for sun, it is already freeing up space. Honestly, there is nothing all that special to say here. It doesn't make the Pokemon more fit for any other role than other typings. It just kinda works.

Elecrtic/Dark on the other hand, has even more speicifc upsides in my opinion. Yes, it doesn't resist water. That doesn't mean a thing. We don't need our Pokemon to be able to switch into rain. We need it to fill up teamslots so that sun teams can afford to run something that can. And when looking for a typing that can fufil the roles a sun team needs, Electric/Dark is probably the best you will find. The reasoning for this is that it has the offensive typing required to threaten the biggest problems for sun. It doesn't need big offenses to threaten since its typing does so much of the work. Sure, it won't be switching in on Politoed or Latios, but switching in on those guys doesn't do anything helpful for sun. It is the ability to threaten them back that we need. Once we get in, the Pokemon that scare the rest of our team will not want to risk a switch in. This allows us to do whatever job we want in relative peace. Remember, typing has very little to do with the ability to spin or trap or fill really any of the major roles sun needs. All it really needs to do is enable us, and Electric/Dark does this incredibly well.

Grass/Steel and Steel/Fire I am going to lump together since both have the exact same major flaw. An existing Pokemon. Fact is, Ferrothorn and Heatran are amazing Pokemon, and their existing makes approaching from this angle rather pointless. What are we going to do? Make a Ferrothorn with rapid spin? Great. Looks like we just freed up a team slot. For rain. These two typings are just so good, it becomes a case of be worse and see no use, or be better and enable the teams these Pokemon already exist on just as much as sun. The only real way to avoid this would be something like an offensive Grass/Steel, but I fail to see how that really brings anything to the table. The typing is fairly awful offensively, and I can hardly see why a sun team would want an offensive addition with such redundant coverage. As for Steel/Fire, well... sun already runs Heatran. It is one of the best Pokemon in sun, and one of the best Pokemon out of it for that matter. We are not going to make something better than Heatran that isn't everywhere, and we are certainly not going to create anything that will make people want to double up on a typing that greatly compounds water and ground weaknesses.

Grass/Ice is an odd one. Honestly, there is not much wrong with this typing, but it just seems 100% outclassed for the job by Electric/Dark or Electric/Grass. Going the route as a pivot, Ice simply adds much more undesirable weakneses while only adding a resistance to Ice. Now not being weak to Ice is nice, but the ability to take unSTAB Ice Beams a little better is not worth the addition of weaknesses to 4 of the most common attacking types in OU. And, as far as offensive pressure is concerned, this typing does most of the same as Electric/Dark, but takes on major priority weaknesses to do so, greatly limiting what it can threaten. Additionally while I see no need for a resistance, adding a stealth rock weak Pokemon is about the last thing Sun wants.

Finally, I would also want to touch on the Ghost types. Base Speed talked about this already, but I would just like to reiterate. Ghost typing means spinblocking. The fact is, OU lacks good ghosts. So, if we creat a good pokemon (we will) that happens to be ghost type, it will be used everywhere, not just on sun. Not only is that a problem because we want to help sun, but it is a problem because sun is the playstyle that probably requires spinning the most, thus actually making sun worse off overall.

That is about all I have to say at this point. I already gave my view on Dragon types earlier, and no other typing brought up really has been anything I find worth noting, good or bad. As of right now, I firmly believe that Electric/Grass and Electric/Dark are the best ways to go about this project. I'll give a quick shout out to pure Electric and Dark types which I think could also do what we want from Electric/Dark, but just focused on one side. But overall, I think these two dual types are our best bet.

I have some reservations about the popular Electric/Dark typing. It has it's merits as a potential Lati@s slayer and Thunder absorber, but other than that it more seems to compound existing liabilities for Sun team pokemon. It adds yet another Ground-type weakness to the team, most Sun teams having at least two if not more. It does not resist stealth rock, which is a big liability for a Sun teamslot as it they already have too many SR weak pokemon. It also doesn't resist water, which makes it hard to slay water types when you're getting 2HKO'd by rain boosted hydro pumps. With careful planning these issues could be solved in the stat, ability, and movepool stages, but when just taking a general view of Electric/Dark typing it would appear to help Rain more than Sun, having the potential to abuse STAB thunder or pursuit trap the more physically frail sun team staples like Ninetales and Volcorona. Dark typing also encourages the increased use of U-turn, a staple of the #1 pokemon in OU, and Fighting-types, which are also highly used OU types.

In short, problems with Electric/Dark that should be considered:

Does not help Sun by resisting SR

Adds another Ground weakness to a Sun team

Does not resist Water

Potential for thunder abuse and/or pursuit trapping Sun mons which have less physical bulk than Rain mons in general

Encourages U-turn and Fighting-types

I'm not saying that Electric/Dark does not have merits, but the above points should be considered for later stages if we go with this one.

Another Grass Electric suggestion! Same reasons as before. Basically my view of this would be a defensive pivot or straight out tank to deal with rain teams and other offensive threats. Of course it's also possible to give a pokemon two different abilities, the user choosing which one best fits the team it's on. Something like water absorb or storm drain could be chosen over an ability like harvest if you were planning on countering rain teams, or the latter if you were confident with your weather control. Not to mention that such a typing with large defenses would be both a pain in the ass without being a huge boon to rain teams itself. Cool shit.

Seeing as Water types with Ice Beam seems to be the main concern, I decided that I would do some research on what types can resist both.
Every typing that has a resistance to both Ice and Water
-Water/Ice
-Steel/Water
-Pure Water

This really needed to be pointed out that we can't get a Pokemon that resists both Water and Ice without having the Water type involved. So you're going to need to make a decision if you want to mainly resist Water, Ice, or also have an Electric immunity for Thunder. All the typings that resist either Water or Ice and have an Electric immunity are as follows:
-None.

Water and Ice are both SE against Ground, which means it will never resist either even with the dual typing, which you probably already knew. We're going to have to be offensively minded when choosing the types because unless you want a Water type on a Sun team, we should probably focus on the offensive qualities a type can have against water types and maybe have a resistance to either Water or Ice, but you're still prone to getting a Thunder to the face unless you're Grass, Dragon, Electric, or Ground typed also. Ground and Dragon are assumed out of the question, so unless you'd like to give up resistance to Water and/or Ice for an immunity to Thunder, Ground shouldn't be used; and Dragon is one of the "Big 4" types that we're trying to stop in the first place. I didn't take the time to look for a dual STAB typing we can take advantage of, I'll leave that to someone else.

Well, I would propose Poison/Electric, or maybe Poison/Ghost, but Poison seems over and done with with Mollux, and Gengar exists, so I also support Grass/Electric.

Grass has a hidden card under its sleeve that we haven't explored outside of Venuthorn: Being able to effectively dismantle Water types, and as such rain teams, and sweep sun teams or support them with ease while Solarbeaming and destroying every weather team around once Fire, Dragon and Steel types are gone, save for the rare Hail. However, other than Venusaur, we really know nothing about its true potential as anything but a Solarbeaming sun sweeper, annoying status spammer or Ferrothorn, counter to every rain team in existence. Let's delve into the world of Grass while simultaneously supporting Electric with Elec's Ground weakness and Flying immunity, and learning more about the odd type that we all dismiss known as Grass.

Electric, on the other hand, is obvious: Alongside Fire and Ice, Elec is known as one of the members of the offensive trio (or, at least Game Freak thinks so; that crippling inability to hit Ground is normally horrible in a tier infested with Glischomps), and is also arguably the best defensively, with no SR weakness and a Flying resistance. One weakness is good too. However, one question does come to mind: how will such a type stand up paired with Grass which is known primarily as a Status Stallling tank class (save for Solarbeaming sun teams, which get ever more rare with Politoed)? Will it work in as good a pair as it looks on the type chart, or will the bulk of the moves of each type being complete opposites of those of the other be its downfall? And how will such a combo effect the various Rain teams RIP Politoed usage?

Truly, I think that this will be a great learning experience for everyone, and I hope Deck makes a productive choice we can all learn from.

Moderator

I agree with the disadvantage of Ghost types in that CAP5 would end up spinblocking itself and other Sun teams, undoing some of its usefulness. However, I think Ghost's defensive advantages shouldn't be ignored over Dark typing; Fighting immunity and Bug resistance are neat, although being Pursuit weak is annoying. Dark/Electric would definitely lend itself to a more offensive mon, while Ghost/Electric would be better suited for defense. I don't particularly mind which way we go, however. Grass/Electric sounds cool after the arguments being posted here, and I think it could work pretty well as a Sun-pivot while taking key attacks. That Ice weakness is bleh, but I've gotten more used to the idea that non-STAB Ice attacks are just opportunities for Ninetales / Heatran to switch in. So Dark/Electric, Grass/Electric, and the aforementioned Grass/Dragon get my approval now.

Ghost should be ignored, because if it is good, which it will be, it will be used more often then you can blink. If CAP 5 is able to be used on more then simply sun teams effectively, then type usage, overall, won't be affected much. So in spite of its use, I think it should be ignored simply because of what it represents - our concept dying from the point we introduce it into the equation.

A lot of people like Grass because it resists Water. However, this thinking focuses a lot more on defensive Waters than offensive Waters. I feel that the latter is more threatening to sun (as it currently is) than the former, because not much in sun cares about Scald (except physical Venusaur, Dugtrio and I guess I'll include Sawsbuck in there too), while offensive Waters will use coverage moves to tear a Grass-type down. This, I think, is a serious thing to consider when talking about a Grass-type CAP 5. I'm not saying Grass would be bad, since there's certainly something to be said about relieving Venusaur of multitasking pressure, but it is something to consider.

To add onto what CiteAndPrune and jas61292 said, I don't think that anyone's goal in supporting Dark / * is to shut Lati@s down. I don't think that that's all that realistic. However, with stuff like SubCM Latias being what it is against the typical sun team, I definitely think that at least deterring Lati@s would be beneficial to sun teams. It doesn't try to do too much, which would risk making an overall great Pokemon that doesn't really help sun. I think that the late Genesect is a pretty good example (not perfect for obvious reasons) of what we should be aiming for here. Genesect did generically help rain teams, but it also helped sun teams, making teams like Lavos Spawn's GeneSun a significant force in the metagame, without being "broken" or whatever.

I don't think that we should address the questions of "biggest weaknesses" or "role-filling" so generically. We can easily slap Ice Beam and/or Ice Shard on any typing and call it a day (or at least, come as close to doing that as might be reasonable) against most Dragon-types and Ground-types. We can easily slap things like Rapid Spin or Will-O-Wisp or a host of other things onto any typing as well. To me, it's more about threats that we would like to address but might be harder to address than other threats without heavily involving the typing.

Figure I might as well start participating in these eventually, heh, I've been following them since a good while before Arghonaut... Can't remember when though.

I'd like to voice my support for Grass/Water or any other combination with Water. There's not much that I can add to what has already been said about this typing (others pretty much covered that), but if we're going for a sun mon, which is admittedly a little dull, I think the best approach is to do something kind of backwards and unique. A Water type that functions best in Sun, poorly in Rain, and hurts its fellow water types. I think figuring out just how to perfect this would be interesting, at the very least.

Figure I might as well start participating in these eventually, heh, I've been following them since a good while before Arghonaut... Can't remember when though.

I'd like to voice my support for Grass/Water or any other combination with Water. There's not much that I can add to what has already been said about this typing (others pretty much covered that), but if we're going for a sun mon, which is admittedly a little dull, I think the best approach is to do something kind of backwards and unique. A Water type that functions best in Sun, poorly in Rain, and hurts its fellow water types. I think figuring out just how to perfect this would be interesting, at the very least.

Click to expand...

I'll piggyback, and just state a possible choice - Water/Fire.

It's weakness to SR and EQ could be mitigated by possible abilities.

It could also function in Sun as a potential sweeper or bulky Water, also with the right abilities/moveset/stats.

It's a unique typing as well, as opposed to Water/Grass or even Electric/Grass (remember Rotom-C?). In this way, we could study how a unique typing could potentially influence the metagame.

And the best part? Half of it's STAB moves are nerfed by Rain, while the other half are nerfed by Sun, meaning it could actually be used for or against both.

I'm going to make this post here as a last-ditch effort to bring Grass/Dragon back into the good graces of the CAP community. I understand that both Jas and Deck, along with a handful of others, have serious reservations about it; I am not ignoring their legitimate concerns but rather trying to address them in the context of this typing's advantages. I do however have a lot to say in support of this typing, so this is going to be a long post (sorry).

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?

The first and probably biggest obstacle for Sun teams is opposing weather, especially Rain. More to the point, the standard Ninetales/Venusaur/Dugtrio/Heatran/Forretress/Volcarona teammates have enormous trouble reacting to Politoed switch-ins, and they consistently struggle at any given moment that Drizzle is active, with the vast majority of Sunmons unable to switch into rain offense. Venusaur is the only Sun staple not weak to Water (Forry has crap SpD), so it can't tank those Rain-boosted-or-otherwise Water attacks all on its own, waiting for a chance to wedge Ninetales back into battle. Because of this extreme weakness, Sun has found itself to be the only perma-weather playstyle forced to waste moveslots on it's own weather-summoning move, Sunny Day. Jas and others have argued that a Water resistance isn't necessary since Sun is the chosen playstyle here, but I really think that line of reasoning fails to account for Sun's poor ability to get Sun back, most especially when facing Drizzle teams.

Venusaur is also Sun's most common Electric resist and best answer to Rotom-W, putting more pivoting and defensive pressure on the team's primary sweeper in the face of opposing rain (Rotom-W sees very diverse usage on a lot of different play styles), which hurts Sun's viability a lot. For this reason, supplementary teammates to the standard Sun build are tightly constrained to Water and Electric resists specifically, preferably with a Ground resist/immunity. Sun frequently calls on Sunny Day shenanigans and Dragons like Latios to back Venusaur up when it comes to avoiding Water-type assaults and pivoting around opposing weather starters, a role Grass/Dragon can fill much more thoroughly.

A Dragon/Grass teammate's 4x resistances to both Water and Electric would allow it to be a better pivot vs. rain-boosted attacks and Rotom-W than Latios and Venusaur are, taking enormous defensive pressure off Venusaur itself. Unlike other Grass typings suggested, the Dragon pairing takes pressure off of CAP's statistical bulk when it comes to tanking powerful Hydro Pumps, especially when boosted by the rain, multiple times in a match. Grass STAB in return threatens Politoed and the other Water-types off the field (even Gastrodon) better than Lati@s, and even crosses over into Sand-checking territory. Dragon STAB keeps the Dragons that threaten Sun from switching in so easily and often (Scarfed or naturally fast CAPs could realistically help with Sun's Lati@s problem via a combination of deterrence and possibly revenge-killing). Dragon STAB also draws in defensive Steels, which Sun teams can take good advantage of, especially Ninetales if opposing weather is up. At the same time, the typing's 4x weakness to Ice, more glaring than even its Dragon weakness (Heatrans and Forretresses take those hits), is an easy target for weak moves like non-STAB HP-Ice or Ice Beam, which Ninetales (and just about anything else on a Sun team) can switch in on to take minimal damage, reset Sun, or set up. A smart player running Ninetales + CAP5 could even find themselves able to switch Ninetales directly into Polioed to take an Ice Beam aimed at the more obvious CAP5 switch-in! In terms of roles, this typing plays the anti-Rain pivot better than any other. An additional Ground resistance is huge for Sun teams; Ninetales, Heatran, Venusaur, and Volcarona all hate Ground moves, Dugtrio can't tank anything, and Forretress lacks recovery enough to not be worn down by neutral blows, leaving little space in team building to address the popular attacking type (in addition to Water/Electric resists). None of the other supported typings boast this Ground resistance, and the Electric types only exacerbate this problem for Sun teams. Grass/Dragon would address Electric/Ground/Water all at once with targeted defensive matchups and useful offensive presence. In return, common Sunmons can take U-turns, Dragon moves, and especially Ice moves for CAP5, no problem. Heatran, already a staple on Sun teams, resists everything Grass/Dragon is weak to, and except for Fighting-type attacks, the reverse is also true.

A Grass/Dragon has everything to gain from the Sun offensively. Fire coverage, even via Hidden Power, in conjunction with Grass and Dragon STABs, makes for an incredible coverage set that only misses out on Heatran (for Dugtrio?) and hits most common Fighting, Water, and Steel-types for super-effective damage. In Sun, CAP gets a 1.5x power bonus on all three attack moves and so is most effective in that weather. If we are careful with coverage, we can actually make CAP5 wallable by certain Steel-types this way if rain is up, which would make CAP a much more effective Poke in Sun than in Rain (where Ferrothorn outclasses as a Grass-type). Grass/Dragon/HP-Ground too would be a viable option as a Heatran lure for Sun teams that have trouble with it, and retains good overall coverage. Recovery moves like Synthesis are also available to Grass-types for use in the Sun.

In any case, the synergy Grass/Dragon offers to Sun teams as an anti-rain pivot, by typing alone, is phenomenal, and it gives us a much better head start into achieving our desired direction. It patches up big holes in Sun strategy with its targeted resistances and offensive STABs while common Sunmons can take U-turns, Dragon moves, and Ice moves for CAP5.

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?

Rapid Spin could be neat here, for two reasons. The first reason is that an offensive spinner would do Sun a much bigger favor than its current options, as it can cause more switches in more situations than Forretress and Donphan. On top of that, the CAP would be able to take on Jellicent with incredible ease, 4x resisting its typically mono-Water attack set and threatening with Grass STAB, while Gengar would have trouble switching into Dragon attacks and has only the incredibly rare HP-Ice to hit it with (or Sludge Bomb, but come on), so it keeps OU's spin-blockers at bay. The second reason is that it would take the place of Forretress, who is such a momentum-killer for the primarily fast and offensive Sun teams and cannot double as a check to opposing weather. With Forry's primary function covered, Sun teams can look to a wider variety of teammates that don't absolutely need access to Rapid Spin. Mainly, though, where Sun is pretty crappy at maintaining its weather effects against rain, this typing would diminish the desire for near-gimmicks like Weather Trapper Heatran and Sunny Day Ninetales/Venusaur and open up a couple moveslots around the team by making it easier for Ninetales to switch in. Things like Gliscor, Mamoswine, or additional Sun sweepers could fill in gaps much better for the Sun play style with Forretress and Donphan brushed aside, while Sunmons as a group would appreciate the lack of entry hazards. This CAP could fit in Venusaur's slot at the same time and tweak it into an offensive pivot, synergizing well with something like Volcarona as the primary sweeper and opening up a teamslot. Entry hazards could work along the same lines and are a great tactic for Pokemon designed to cause switches.

As an aside, I am not convinced that Pursuit trapping fills the role of Trapper here, and definitely not as a replacement to Dugtrio. Dugtrio is already on Sun teams for the sole reason of removing Heatran; I don't see how adding another teammate to specifically trap an additional specific threat (just Lati@s) helps at all, especially considering you would need either a physical Ice move, good mixed attacking stats with HP-Ice to cover the other Dragons, and/or SpD enough to take repeated Draco Meteors, at which point you're just looking at tons of stats. At the very least, Pursuit as the only justification for Dark typing is kind of weak and doesn't appear to relate to the concept in any reasonable way.

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?

Offensively, Grass/Dragon doesn't need much help on Sun teams that already trouble Steels, so it'll fit right in. Filling a slot on a Sun team means the strategy won't lean so heavily on other Dragons to patch up its weaknesses in those last couple team slots, invariably allowing a greater variety of strategies. Mamoswine would probably see an uptick in usage on Sun; with Thick Fat it resists Ice, and it's Ground/Ice STABs do a good job of targeting opposing Dragons, Steels, and Sun teams. Ice and Bug resists are easy to come by, Steels will be around to absorb Dragon attacks until the end of time, and Flying is much less of a concern now that Tornadus-T is banned, while Sun lowers Hurricane's accuracy to begin with. I can't say for sure which Pokemon will be used to fill in the gaps, but this typing fits well enough on current Sun teams that the variety of viable candidates will be large.

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Okay now I'm going to make this post even longer because I apparently have a lot to defend here regarding the Dragon typing and I'll just be beating a dead horse if I try to stretch this out into multiple posts. Firstly, I would like to point out that this typing's 4x Water resist let's us be more creative during our ability stages; we could pursue pro-Sun abilities or power adjusting abilities or really anything not named Water Absorb/Storm Drain, the two of which run a big risk of stifling our ability discussions if we don't address Water resistance here. Same thing goes for Sun's Ground-type weakness and the popularity of Electric typing in this thread. On the flip side, no abilities are going to stop Dragon spam, leaving bulky stats as the only method for switching into Dragon attacks anyway; we must either be set on high defensive stats (polljumping) or content to not try and switch into Dragons much at all (this would suggest that being Dragon-weak actually isn't a real concern for the concept). Being Dragon-weak is actually not much worse than being neutral to Dragon in this metagame; not much can switch into those attacks on either side of the spectrum. Grass/Dragon at least takes neutral-or-better damage from every common coverage move found on OU's Dragons (Kyurem-B being the exception for its Ice STAB), which none of Grass/Electric, Dark/Electric, Grass/Steel, or Steel/Fire can say for themselves.

I am not proposing a Dragon to beat all other Dragons; that is a mischaracterization of the advantages of this typing. Grass/Dragon is for pivoting through common Drizzle tactics for the benefit of resetting Sun and for covering common weaknesses on standard Sun teams. It is also for pairing best with Fire coverage offensively, which is boosted by the Sun. The fact that it can hit every Dragon in OU is a plus, considering the concept, but it isn't really the selling point of this typing at all. It is true that Dragons can find themselves welcome on any type of team, and Grass/Dragon would get a pseudo-Water resist from Rain and be able to absorb Electric and Grass attacks aimed at Water-types. However, considering this practically (in the absence of legendary stats and Water-type attacks), this Poke can only be outclassed by Lati@s and Ferrothorn when competing for teamslots in rain. It will most likely be walled by every Steel-type in rain, and it's also weak to Hurricane and U-turn, which rain teams can't afford. On Sun teams, this just isn't the case; in fact, the opposite is true, that Sun currently has nothing of note dedicated to reacting to Rain beyond running backup Sunny Days on one or more teammates, forcing Venusaur to double-dip tactically, or just running Dragons in one or two of its few available teamslots anyway. The way the two weather styles are currently constructed, Grass/Dragon may be usable in rain, but it is BETTER in Sun, or more importantly not outclassed in what it's trying to do.

Okay, moving on to the Ice weakness: I don't get what the fuss is about. Politoed, Starmie, Vaporeon, some Tentacruel, and some Keldeo carry Ice moves amongst the various common Watermons, this is true. Jolteon and Thundurus-T commonly run HP-Ice for BoltBeam coverage. Does that mean those Pokes will be launching Ice Beams every time they enter the field? If yes, then GOOD. Sun Pokes can switch into that stuff all day, and Ninetales can take their Water-power away in the process. Grass-STAB and any kind of offensive presence will prevent CAP from being a sitting duck against these Water-types; the ability to force them out for fear of being KOed is the very definition of what a pivot is supposed to do. I've actually explained this now 3 times in 2 posts, so I'll just leave it be.

Well I hope you read all that; as you can see there is plenty justification for Grass/Dragon typing as it pertains to Sun strategy and as it pertains to the rest of our process. If I am called to it, I will further this argument, but in the meantime I will just sit here scratching my head as to why everyone wrote it off so immediately and picked up a bandwagon on some really questionable typings (Dark/Electric for Sun teams? Grass/Electric for Sun teams?).

CAP Head Mod

So we're getting down to the wire here, and I'm going to give one more post before I start the countdown.

What I'm interested in here is building a Pokemon that adds versatility to a sun core. What Pokemon can work with other Pokemon already in a Sun team and with Pokemon that might be good candidates given another Pokemon to add to that core. Here's what I'm currently thinking, and I think we've covered a lot of ground and its time for the 24 hour warning.

Electric / Grass adds a Pokemon that can pivot into Water moves, threaten every kind of Water type in Rain and most Hurricane users, can hold its own against Sand and has no truly critical weaknesses. I don't consider a weakness to unSTAB Ice Beam so compelling that it negates the effectiveness Grass presents against Water and Ground, since even if it doesn't resist both (Grass/Elec forfeits the Ground resistance) it still provides the offensive presence necessary against them.

Electric / Dark is a little tougher to manage down the road to make sure it isn't the latest and greatest Rain mon, but it does have serious potential as a physical attacker that has STAB on Pursuit to act as a trapper, and can be built in a way to make it very favorable to Sun. Essentially it locks onto a specific threat to sun while providing general utility against Rain without opening up an Ice weakness in exchange for a little more weakness to Ground, a threat that can be managed in several ways that include items as well as abilities.

Grass / Dragon is difficult to sell on a one on one basis, however the point of this direction is we're forming a core. Grass / Dragon interacts well against Water and Ground moves, and while it does cry out for Ice Shard bait, the only common user is Mamoswine. Mamoswine and Sun share an interesting relationship, but perhaps the best thing about it is with Grass / Dragon you can add Rotom-H to your core as an Ice resist that can threaten waters with Electric STAB. It also provides a Ground immunity that can aid you in the third part of the core formation, Heatran.

It's true that Rain Pokemon can hit all 3 of the Pokemon SE with Water+Ice coverage. But there are already a slew of Pokemon that resist Water/Ice, its just they all prefer Rain. The problem isn't that Sun doesn't have a viable Water/Ice resist, it has the most populous type in the game to draw on if it needed that, and there's even a few Water-types with Fire Moves (Hiya Tikibro.) In Sun the Water weak isn't even really a problem for Heatran/Rotom-H. The problem is getting Ninetales back in, and by making an Ice move prediction even a considered option for a Rain team to use in normal battle situations, you give Ninetales a chance to switch in or enable Rotom-H as an Electric pivot.

Another typing I'm considering for the slate is Grass / Dark. Grass / Dark is a great typing that is held by mons I find awesome, but that just can't compete in OU. The typing just isn't that conducive to sun sweeping, as proven by Shiftry, and you really don't want to be initially slower than the premiere U-turn user in OU Cacturne. Grass / Dark fuses the purpose of Electric / Dark with the water and ground resistances that make Grass favorable, and it doesn't have any potential optics issues that an Elec / Dark with an explicitly "Grass" ability might generate.

The key characteristics I find in all of these types is that a) they threaten Rain and water types as pivots or enablers of pivots b) Built properly they can have an excellent orientation towards our goal, c) they have no SR or EQ weakness, and even if they have an Ice weakness their presence means Ninetales has an attack to switch into to reset Sun and d) they bring new STABs to the table to enhance Sun's offensive presence on their own and through the cores they enable.

Finally, a brief word on mono-types. While I'm not specifically excluding them, the problem is they already exist in droves, including various sun sweepers (Tangrowth) and Rain attackers (Jolteon) and as of yet none of them have been able to alter the metagame, so I feel we need a dual-type to achieve the goals of the project.

EDIT:After a brief discussion I have decided to add Electric / Ice into the mix. While this is weak to SR and EQ, I feel it has enough going for it directionally that it would be worthwhile to slate. It's neutral to water and threatens it, it resists Ice so it easily takes the most common coverage move for Water-types, it has no 4x weaknesses, and given a proper niche it could combine with Venusaur's Fighting resistance and Chandelure's immunity. Ground types in OU are often critically weak to Ice and the typing also gives us a method to take down the Latis. I feel it is a decent neutral type which provides a unique balance of weaknesses, resistances, and capabilities that can be built on towards the goal of the concept.

EDIT 2:Scrap Elec / Ice. Grass / Fighting is my final choice. It adds a valuable SR Resistance to a Sun team, can be tailored in a way to differentiate it from both Breloom and Virizion, we had previous established that Fighting types are not something we have a problem with conceptually, and after discussions about Elec/Fighting I just feel like if I'm going to go with Fighting it should be attached to something that naturally resists Water and Ground, because those resists are more fundamentally needed on a Sun team than other playstyles. Double Grass relieves pressure from Venusaur to be the Water attack sponge, and a 2x unSTAB Ice Beam weakness from most Rain attackers is entirely manageable - and a predicted Ice attack is just a chance to switch Ninetales back in.